Snail traps of this general type are known. A bowl of plastic material is generally used and is inserted into the ground up to its rim and then filled with beer. Other liquids, such as fermented apple juice, can be used instead of beer.
Snails are night creatures. They are enticed in the darkness by the liquid used as bait and drink it. The alcohol apparently causes loss of sense of balance and the snails drown in the liquid. They shrink in volume when they die, so that a bowl can hold a large number of snail carcasses. The bowl should be sufficiently deep to ensure that the snails actually drown since they might be able to crawl out of a shallow container.
The chief disadvantage of these known snail traps is that the removal of the snail carcasses is an unpleasant and offensive task. One can, of course, empty the container as a whole together with the liquid, even though the latter would still be usable. If the snail carcasses are left for too long a period of time in the liquid, the liquid loses its efficacy as bait. Snails appear particularly during wet weather and rain, and the latter in turn dilutes the liquid bait, thus reducing it efficacy.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to facilitate the removal of snail carcasses from a snail trap of the type containing a liquid bait.
It is another object of the invention to provide an improved trap design such that rain cannot enter the bait liquid.